The most-traded May nickel contract on the SHFE was at 93,390 yuan ($14,082) per tonne as of 10:45am Shanghai time, down 670 yuan from the previous session’s close with around 585,000 lots changing hands so far.

Open interest of the contract rose to 454,440 positions as at 10:08am Shanghai time, up from 440,942 positions at Thursday’s close as investors opened short positions.

“The weak economic data in China earlier this week has sparked some concerns about demand for stainless steel and nickel in coming months. This was enough for investors to lock in some gains after the 20% rally in prices over the past couple of months,” ANZ Research said on Friday.

“Bearish sentiment in the commodity markets is likely to remain a key driver of prices for the rest of the week,” the bank added.

Meanwhile, the most-traded January copper contract on the SHFE traded at 52,950 yuan per tonne as of 10:45am Shanghai time, up 140 yuan from the previous session’s close, with around 157,000 lots traded so far.

The SHFE copper price saw some support from the recent drop in London Metal Exchange copper stocks - inventories had fallen by a total of 7,250 tonnes over Wednesday and Thursday - but it nonetheless remains some distance from a high of 55,910 yuan per tonne reached on October 16.

The SHFE copper price lacks positive factors to support it in the near term while the drop in SHFE nickel prices has affected sentiment in the base metals market overall, China’s Ruida Futures said late on Thursday.

The dollar index was down by 0.37% at 93.52 as of 10:31am Shanghai time.

In other commodities, the Brent crude oil spot price fell 0.42% to $61.10 per barrel as of 10:32am Shanghai time.

In equities, the Shanghai Composite was down 0.49% to 3,382.46.

In US data on Thursday, weekly unemployment claims came in at 249,000, above the 235,000 forecast. Import prices also disappointed with a 0.2%, below an expected print of 0.4%, and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve manufacturing index stood at 22.7.

Additionally, the capacity utilization rate improved to 77%, besting the estimate of 76.3%. Industrial production month over month ticked up 0.9%, beating the previous release of 0.4%.

The economic agenda is light today with mainly US building permits and housing starts of note. European Central Bank president Mario Draghi is also scheduled to speak.